Senior Citizen JuCo Baller Likely Finished Playing

Remember Ken Mink? He’s the guy pictured below at the free throw line who made headlines in 2008 when he took the court at Roane State Community College. At 73-years-old, he played in seven games and scored in three. But right in the prime of his career, an Achilles tendon injury cost him his 2009-10 season. ↵

↵↵Mink was bound for Tennessee Tech this season -- as a walk-on -- but the NCAA is using Mink’s career 50-plus years ago to put an end to his current run.↵

↵↵⇥Mink first played college basketball in 1955-56 for Lees Junior College of Jackson, Ky. NCAA rules allow players five years to play four seasons.↵⇥↵⇥Mink’s five-year window, according to the NCAA, started when he enrolled at Lees in 1955, making him ineligible to play at Tennessee Tech this year.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥“We got bad news,” [Tennessee Tech coach Mike] Sutton said. “The NCAA said Ken would not be eligible to play for us or any other NCAA team because of their 5-4 Rule. The 5-4 Rule says you must complete your four years of college play within a five-year period. They say Ken’s 5-4 Rule clock started in 1955 when he was in junior college. We think his 5-4 clock should not have started until 2008, when he played for Roane State.”↵⇥

↵↵↵Now, I’m all for the NCAA keeping, say, a bored-but-skilled ex-NBA player in his 30s out of college basketball. That’d be bad for the game. But this? This is nothing but good press all around. What does the NCAA really fear here? There’s no slippery slope here either. Mink wouldn’t be anything more than a mascot/victory cigar in all likelihood, so the NCAA doesn’t have to worry about Mink ruining the integrity of the Ohio Valley Conference. Rather than simply applying the rule, how about we make an addendum that stipulates after, oh, four decades, you can get another five-year window. In the name of logic and good fun, make this right, NCAA.↵

↵↵(H/T to College Hoops Journal)↵

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